I remember when I first learned about the honors program at Cazenovia College. I was a recently graduated high school senior, committed to Cazenovia College and received a letter from Dr. Kozaczka telling me about the program and how to apply. My first thought was, “Wow. This woman has a harder to pronounce last name than mine.”
After reading over the letter a few times, the idea of the honors program began to appeal to me. I had always been on an “honors” track starting in elementary school, where I was placed in the highest reading and math groups, continuing on to high school, where I took several APs, and finishing in college, where I began as a second-semester freshman thanks to the number of AP credits that transferred over. The honors program seemed like a natural progression.
It seemed so simple to get into the honors program. I already had the grades for it, I just had to write a 500 word essay on that year’s topic. Nothing that has been so beneficial to me has ever been as easy to get. Those 500 words opened a world of learning to me that has given me the opportunity to explore subjects that interest me in more detail, such as an honors project that later turned into my capstone. Those 500 words gave me the chance to explore the world quite literally by travelling to Paris and seeing the City of Lights as it was in the 1920s through the eyes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Those 500 words gave me the chance to work with other like-minded and ambitious students, for whom I will always be grateful.
My honors peers always inspired me to be an open-minded person, to think about the big issues our generation faces and they never once made me question the caliber of student the college is sending out into the world.
For me, this is the beauty of the honors program at Cazenovia – the people within the program. There is a wonderful sense of community at this college; it’s hard not to have when there are less than 1,000 students on campus. It’s like having a big extended family. But within the honors program, there is an even tighter community. Your immediate family.
It’s unspoken at times, but there. It’s choosing to go above and beyond what is required by your professors and knowing there are others doing the same. It’s knowing you can depend on them to do an outstanding job on their part of a group project. It’s secretly cheering on the people you had Academic Writing I Honors with freshman year for the rest of your time at Cazenovia because you’re so excited that they are doing big things with their lives.
The honors program at Cazenovia has given me so much in the way of learning and expanding my horizons, but the greatest gift it has given me is the gift of the people in its community. Without this program, Cazenovia might as well be just another small, private, liberal arts college in the Northeast with a nice barn and brick buildings. But it’s not. And the honors program is the key difference.
